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Walraven, from the heights of her hostess-throne, looked aslant at her velvet and diamonds with uneasy old eyes. "The last of all you should have selected," she said, waylaying her son after supper. "A woman without a heart, Carl a modern Minerva.
With my death, the annuity will cease, and you will be penniless. I don't choose to be put out of the way by you or your poisoning cousin." Blanche Walraven's eyes flashed fury. "You are a merciless, iron-hearted man, Carl Walraven, and I hate you! I close with your terms, because I can not help myself; but I'll have revenge yet!" "And the very first attempt you make," said Mr.
He laughed to himself, a laugh unpleasant to hear, and taking up another cigar, went on smoking. He had been away twenty years, this Carl Walraven, over the world, nobody knew where. A reckless, self-willed, headstrong boy, he had broken wild and run away from home at nineteen, abruptly and without warning.
Oh, Carl Walraven! if you could look upon your work, surely even you would feel remorse." The entrance of Hugh Ingelow aroused her. She turned to him her pale, sweet face and earnest blue eyes. "I want to thank you so much, Mr. Ingelow, and I can not. You are very, very, very good." He took the hand she held out and kissed it. "One word from you would repay me for ten times as much.
And we will tell people who ask troublesome questions that you are the orphan daughter of a dead cousin of mine. What do you say?" "As you please, of course. It is all one to me." The train thundered into the depot presently, and there was the usual turmoil and uproar. Mr. Walraven called a cab, and half an hour's rattling over the stony streets brought them to the Walraven mansion.
Walraven suspiciously from head to foot when he found his business concerned his star actress. He was accustomed to gentlemen falling in love with her, and quite willing to take little bribes from them; but he stared in angry amazement when he heard what Carl Walraven had to say. "Carry off Mollie!" exclaimed Mr. Harkner, "and adopt her as your daughter!
Her first absence set the avenue on the qui vive and made her a heroine, so she is resolved to try it again. If people would be guided by me," glancing significantly at her husband, "they would cease to worry themselves about her, and let her return at her own good pleasure, as she went." "Yes, Mr. Walraven," said Dr. Oleander, flushed and triumphant, "Blanche is right.
"Blanche, be civil! Most assuredly I will marry her if she will marry me." "Then you will repent it all the days of your life." "Probably. I think I heard Miss Dane making a similar remark to your affianced about you." "The impertinent little wretch! Let her wait until I am Mr. Walraven's wife!" "Vague and terrible! When is it to be?" "The wedding? Next month." "Poor Walraven!
And all, Mollie all owing to Carl Walraven." She paused a moment. The girl held the cup of wine to her lips. A few swallows revived her, and enabled her to go on. "There were two brothers, James and Stephen Dane. James, the elder by six years, was my husband and your father. We lived in the old Dane homestead we three a happy and prosperous household.
That means murdering her, I suppose. I always took you to be more or less mad, Miriam Dane, but I never before took you to be a fool." The woman looked at him keenly he was evidently telling the truth. Yet still she doubted. "Who but you, Carl Walraven, had any interest in her, one way or the other? What enemies could a girl of sixteen have?" "Ah! what, indeed?
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